Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
